Make it to the Top
by Esm3rald
Summary: Emma Baker loves gymnastics but she has never thought about competing. When her mother remarries and they move to Boulder to go live with the new husband, she meets Coach Sasha Belov. He believes she's talented enough to train for the Olympics but both Emma's past and the attraction she feels towards him complicate things. Does she really have what it takes to make it to the top?


**Okay, I know I shouldn't start another story, especially since I'm not even close to finishing my other 'Make it or Break it' ones, but this idea couldn't leave me alone.**

 **I'm a Payson/Sasha fan but this time I wanted to try something different and write a Sasha/OC story. I don't know if this story will be liked or not but I want to write it anyway.**

 **The other couples will be Payson/Austin and Kaylie/Damon. Don't know about Lauren.**

 **That said, my OC will be the fourth 'Rock Rebel' instead of Emily Kmetko. Emily will be part of the Denver Elite team because when Marty found her, he was already the Denver Elite coach.**

 **In fact, in this story, Marty left for Denver months before Canon (ten months before Nationals 2010 to be exact) because Alex found out about the affair between him and Ronnie. Kaylie's parents are still together though. Alex forgave her because he realized that they had problems long before Ronnie started having an affair with Marty. Fortunately they were able to keep the affair from becoming common knowledge. Only a few people at the Rock know what really happened.**

 **Steve Tanner, of course, was able to find Sasha and convince him to come coaching at the Rock.**

 **The story starts six months before Nationals.**

 **In general this story will follow the big Canon events (Nationals, Rock vs China, World Trials etc) but other things will be different (obviously since this story starts six months before Nationals and Sasha is already the Rock Coach).**

 **This story may be dark at times (nothing too heavy though), and there will be mentions of Rape later on (nothing graphic though).**

 **The relationship between Emma and Sasha will be slow going. Emma is almost sixteen when the story begins but nothing will happen for a long while (before eighteen though, maybe even when she's still sixteen). Anyway, Older guy/Younger girl, Coach/Athlete relationship, you've been warned! And yes, underage too, I suppose.**

 **Hope you like it, anyway!**

 **Prologue**

' _Emma Baker is a slut'_ was written with a black permanent marker in the girls' bathroom wall. Emma reread the sentence three times before turning her head away. She breathed deeply in and out a few times to calm herself and left the bathroom stall.

She had the absurd urge to laugh at her stupidity. She knew she shouldn't have trusted Jake, her instincts had been screaming at her in warning since the first time he smiled at her in the school cafeteria.

She had wanted to feel normal, a normal girl who goes out with a guy her age like every other teenager on the planet. That was the reason she had said yes when he asked her out on a date.

She should have known she couldn't have a normal evening out without things blowing up in her face. She had kissed Jake at the end of the night, a night spent pleasantly watching a movie and then, simply talking and laughing at a café afterwards. She was even thinking of going out with him on a second date. That's when things started to go south.

They were making out in his car, in front of her house, and for once Emma wasn't thinking about what had happened two years ago when suddenly his hand had started slipping under her shirt. She stopped his hand from wandering and brought it away from her skin.

Jake turned away from her then, gripping the steering wheel with both hands.

"Jake, look…" She had tried to explain but Jake had stopped her. He turned towards her, smiling a forced smile and said, "It's okay. I get it."

She had smiled at him in relief and after an awkward 'good night' she had left his car and went home.

When she crossed the school hallway the next morning, she knew immediately that something was wrong. Every student's eye was on her, some were even openly laughing. When the comments from the football players started to become more and more malicious, she realized that Jake had spread lies about what had happened between them the night before. Jake had told everyone who would listen that she had gone down on him at the cinema, that they had sex in a bathroom and then in his car, right in front of her house.

That had been a week ago and the rumors hadn't subsided. Fortunately in two days' time she would leave this school and this town and she would start anew thousands of miles away from here. Not that things had turned out so well after moving here two years ago. She had thought things would be different, that she could forget what had happened and moved on but it didn't go that way. When she had first moved to Phoenix, she had been shy and skittish and that hadn't help her in making any friends. People had ignored her at best and made fun of her at worst. Now, after two years, the first boy she had decided to go out with spread vicious rumors about her because she didn't have sex with him on the first date.

Now she was moving once again because her mother had just married a rich surgeon and they were moving in with him and his daughter in Boulder, Colorado. David Benedict was his name and his daughter, a sweet and adorable 12-year-old called Betty, was a gymnast that trained at the famous Rocky Mountain Gymnastics Training Center with Coach Sasha Belov.

Emma loved Betty already, after meeting her only twice. The fact that she was a gymnast was just a bonus.

Emma loved gymnastics. She trained every day before and after school and during the week ends at the local gym, though she had never tried to go professional. Gymnastics had saved her in her darkest moments, and there had been a lot of dark moments in her life.

She wondered if Sasha Belov would allow her to train at his gym even if she didn't compete. She hoped so because she couldn't imagine going even a day without gymnastics.


End file.
